Epidemiology of Adverse Effects following COVID-19 Vaccination among Subjects visiting Tikrit Teaching Hospital Outpatients Clinics

Abstract

Back ground : Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first identified in  China  leading  to  out  break  of  respiratory  illness  .  there  are  many vaccination used for prevention of the disease. Many side effects appeared with taking theses vaccine as pain, redness, swelling at site of injection and systemic effects (e.g, fever , fatigue, headache, muscle or joint pain, with rare serious adverse events. 
Patients and methods: The current study was descriptive one ,it was conducted among persons vaccinated with Covid-19 vaccines from the period 14th November 2021 -18th march 2022 in Tikrit city . The sample was taken from people attending Tikrit teaching hospital out patient clinics and those previously taken the vaccines. The information was obtained according  to  a  designed  questionnaire  which  included  all  information regarding certain demographic characteristics and common adverse effects as a result of COVID-19 vaccination according to vaccine type.
Results : The most frequent adverse effects was among subjects given AstraZeneca vaccine , followed among those given Pfizer vaccine and the last among those given Sinopharm vaccine. The more frequent cases with adverse effect with AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccine was among age group (35 -45 years )(63%,70.2% respectively) while those among those given Sinopharm  was  among  age  group  less  than  35  years  (38.2%).The commonest adverse effect of COVID-19 vaccination was pain/tenderness at site of injection (76.3%) followed by fever/chills (70.6%) and muscle weakness/tiredness (66.6%) .
Conclusion: The most frequent adverse effects of COVID-19 vaccination was pain/tenderness at site of injection and the highest frequency of adverse effects were among those given AstraZeneca vaccine.